Wadcutters fired through the same media give identical shape but with less recoil and better accuracy.

So the benefits are accuracy, low recoil, deep penetration and low muzzle blast. What are the drawbacks?

First, factory ammunition is made with soft, swaged-lead bullets. Such bullets will dig in on curved obstacles, but they are thought to deform too easily for our needs.

The softness is seen to limit penetration on chance objects and hard structures.

An obstacle the miscreant is hiding behind, which would easily be "soft cover" (penetrable) to a high speed hollowpoint, is thought to become hard cover (impenetrable) to a soft wadcutter.

Also, if your shot happens to need to plow through the bad guy's arm to reach vital organs, the hard bones of the upper arm can significantly slow a swaged wadcutter. However, if he's hiding behind a sheet of plywood, it won't help him much at all.

Second, shooters might have a lack of confidence in using "just a target load." After all, it doesn't have a lot of recoil, muzzle blast and flash. Me, I figure what happens downrange is important, not what happens at the end of my firearm.

To figure out if wadcutters have any promise at all, I tested a couple of them and some other .38 ammo in gelatin. My test gun was a Charter Arms Pink Lady, an alloy-framed five-shot snubbie--a definite "value for money" carry gun, and one that would be most un-fun to shoot with the most robust hollowpoint loads.

The Remington swaged wadcutter penetrated well, and the hard-cast Oregon Trails double-ended wadcutters shot through an impressive pile of gelatin. For the sedate velocities they posted, going more than two feet deep in gelatin is impressive.

I also tried a hollowpoint and a practice FMJ load, and the velocity of those loads was not encouraging. At an average 735 fps from the two-inch barrel, the 125-grain JHPs were barely expanding.

I tried all the loads through a sheet of half-inch plywood and found the penetration decreased but still more than sufficient.

Are wadcutter bullets good for defense? If the most robust hollowpoints are "too much" in recoil, a wadcutter is certainly better than a lead roundnose. You won't lack for accuracy, and practice will not be onerous.

As for confidence in wadcutters as a defensive load, I have to go with the advice of a long-since retired Detroit police officer, who was commenting on his choice of the .32 ACP. "They're all goners if you shoot them between the shirt pockets," he said.

In the case of the .38 wadcutter load, I really don't think, if you do as he said and plant your shots "between the pockets" on a bad guy that he's going to be casually brushing his shirt and complaining "Hey, that hurts." Placement is what counts.